'To the Next Generation of Rebel Voices'

Published at Campus Progress of the Center for American Progress

A small excerpt below:

Too often, the world seems impossible to change. The obstacles too grave,
solutions too hard to come by, apathy and ignorance too prevalent. These moments
of dejection have plagued progressives for generations.

“I start from the supposition that the world is topsy-turvy,” said the
iconic historian Howard Zinn in a 1970
speech. “[T]hat things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and
the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the
wrong people are out of power.” Surely, similar sentiments could be expressed by
any progressive-minded individual at any time in recent history. Such is life in
a world filled with injustice: prospects for
healthcare reform dimming, the Supreme Court handing
democracy over to corporations, young people going bankrupt because
they choose to go to college.

But what made Howard Zinn—the famous historian and activist who died
last week of a heart attack at age 87—so unique was his unceasing faith that
regular people can and should strive to make the world a better place.

"I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we
should not give up the game before all the cards have been played," Zinn wrote
in a 2004 essay, “The
Optimism of Uncertainty.” "The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not
to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at
least a possibility of changing the world."

Trying to make "Sense" of Glenn Beck

(Originally published by Campus Progress)

The conservative icon’s latest book blends Beck’s typical hyperbole with a gross misrepresentation of Thomas Paine’s political views.

Glenn Beck is a particularly egregious example of the larger-than-life conservative punditry class that gained almost regal status during the administration of President George W. Bush. The host of popular shows on Fox News and radio, Beck’s daily musings are so heated and fiery that he often reaches the verge of tears, his voice squeaks in anger and his inaudible words cease to sound like they come from a human. (For those with the stomach for it, YouTube offers many treasures highlighting this tendency, including this clip where Beck actually threatens to "vaporize" a caller who disagrees with him.) It is precisely this attempt at populist rage that led to his latest book, Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: the Case Against an out-of-control government, inspired by Thomas Paine. It just may be the perfect symbol of his hyper-ambition and the outlandish anger that is reflected by many of today’s conservatives.

In Common Sense, Beck’s nonsense goes way beyond misguided right-wing talking points and resorts to a grotesque distortion of American history. His goal, by his own admission was to “re-write” Thomas Paine’s Common Sense—one of the most influential pieces of political writing in American history—and start a new conservative revolution. "Make no mistake," he writes, "a (non-violent) revolution is needed to restore America." It is ambitious endeavor no doubt and has proved to be a major hit; it tops on the New York Times‘ best seller list. But intellectually the book is an abysmal failure. This is because Beck’s efforts to channel Thomas Paine—one of the great progressive thinkers in U.S. history—are patently absurd.

Beck’s 174-page book (the last quarter of which is a reprint of Paine’s pamphlet) is mostly a tirade against government spending. His main targets are social welfare spending, progressive taxation and the occasional rant against the destruction of America’s pious roots. These very themes contrast mightily with the views of Paine, turning the book into something of a bad joke before one page is actually turned. While Paine did view government as a necessary evil, and warned against excessive debt, he was by no means a modern-day libertarian—in fact, quite the opposite.

Paine in his own time was radically progressive—in some ways socialist—and on most issues would be way to the left of the typical parameters of debate in Washington D.C. In the 1775 writing Agrarian Justice, Paine became among the first in the colonies to advocate for a "guaranteed minimum income." Sounding a lot more like Eugene Debs than Beck, Paine’s proposal was to "create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years … for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property."

Paine wrote:

Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed

.

Paine made it clear that he thought freedom was infringed by unmerited inequity—what philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin refers to as "positive liberty," or having the power and resources to act to fulfill one’s own potential. Beck, like most conservatives, unambiguously defines freedom in the mold of "negative liberty," or freedom from government restraint.

"Wake up America!" he writes. "Capitalism isn’t about money, it’s about freedom—the freedom to try and fail that made the United States the richest industrial nation in the world." It is also interesting that, given that Beck’s book pays homage to Paine—who published the first essay in America advocating for abolition— Beck makes no mention of the role of slavery had the early development of the U.S. economy.

Indeed, Beck fumes over most any kind of progressive taxation or shared services: Chapter 5 is actually titled "The Cancer of Progressivism." He constantly rails against the evils of universal health care, minimum wage hikes, welfare, and small tax increases on the rich. In Common Sense, he writes that it’s unfair that those who "worked, hard, lived prudently, spent wisely,” must be bailed out at the expense of the poor.

"The rich are being vilified and targeted because they are rich," Beck writes of Obama-era "class warfare." He has a particular concern about the nation’s youth, who have become increasingly skeptical of modern-day capitalism in recent polls, decrying them as the types that "prefer to be led and fed by the state for free." They are, he insists, "sheep willing to be shorn and molded by their master—yet their ranks are likely to swell as the economic crisis worsens."
With such sharp language one might assume the United States under Obama has implemented a Soviet-style planned economy, but, alas, Beck’s major gripe is that the Democrats implemented a large, but desperately-needed stimulus package, which was gladly received by conservative governors across the country, save a few ideologues.

During the 2008 presidential election Beck threw regular tantrums about how Obama was a socialist for wanting to allow Bush tax cuts to expire on those making more than $250,000 a year. These are marginal tax increases, comparable to what the rich paid under Ronald Reagan’s tax plan. So surely, if Paine was a guest on Beck’s show in 2009 and advocated for a guaranteed minimum income—a direct transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor—an infuriated Beck’s eyes would pop out of his head as he smeared Paine as a French-loving, socialist “little pinhead."

Beck’s strong affinity for the need for an increased role of religion in society also further emphasizes his fundamental differences with Paine. Progressives, Beck writes, "recognize that religion is a unifying force and a counterbalance to state power, so they believe that it must either be harnesses by the state or destroyed." Putting aside his ridiculous assumption that all progressives wish to destroy unity through the use of state power, what is telling about his chapter on religion and morals is that Paine’s words are nowhere to be found. Clearly, this is because, including Paine’s actual thoughts on the matter would further reveal the book’s fatal flaw.

Paine was a staunch critic of religion and Christian doctrines, arguing that they thwarted free-thinking and logic to the detriment society. "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit," Paine wrote in The Age of Reason. It is no wonder that Paine’s utterances on the subject are entirely absent from Beck’s version of Common Sense.

Beck’s book is more evidence of a resurgence of conservative populism aimed at channeling public anger. Progressives would be wise to take notice. As crazed as Beck seems, it must also be acknowledged that his voice is heard—and often. For strategic reasons, his existence simply cannot be ignored: progressives must take great pains to counter his blather. For it is true that Glenn Beck has a large and enthusiastic audience; it is also true that America can learn a lot from Thomas Paine. But Common Sense dictates that the possibility of these two realities becoming in any way morphed together is beyond frightening.

Michael Corcoran is a correspondent for The Boston Globe’s metro desk and graduated from Emerson College in 2007.

Columbus day and American Mythology

For centuries powerful forces have committed despicable acts in the name of “progress” using lies and half-truths to justify such actions. One could point to 1492 as the year when this behavior found its way to America.

Fortunately, as time affords a more nuanced understanding of past events, we often come to condemn the actions and reject the flawed justifications. This is true in the cases of slavery, the invasion of Vietnam, the internment of Japanese citizens and so on. But for some reason we have yet to collectively condemn the absurdity that is Columbus Day.

It was in 1492 that a sailor on “The Pinta” – one of the three ships in Christopher Columbus’s ten-week voyage from Spain -- spotted land and paved the way for European expansion into the "New World."

After his first exposure with the Arawaks, he wrote in his log:

" They willingly traded everything they owned.... .... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance..... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want ...As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."

Since then public schools and the public-at-large have perpetuated one of the biggest farces in American history: the notion of Columbus as a hero worth celebrating.

And celebrate we do, honoring Columbus with one of only nine national holidays, only two of which are named after a single individual (the other being Martin Luther King Jr). But there is an ugly truth that American folklore and public school history books downplay: Columbus was a vicious tyrant, ruthless in his pursuit of personal acclaim, who perpetuated unspeakable atrocities to the indigenous populations who were exploited and often killed by Columbus and his brethren in order to increase their wealth, power and stature.

His human-rights abuses notwithstanding, there is serious doubt as to whether or not Columbus was the first settler to discover the Americas. In Minnesota Columbus Day is not celebrated since they believe the Vikings discovered America prior to Columbus. There is also evidence to suggest that the Chinese arrived in the New World more than 70 years before Columbus did. Such ambiguities as to who actually discovered America first has prompted at least one historian, Patrick Gavin of Princeton, to suggest renaming the holiday to “Explorer’s Day. “

Whether it is in the form of a name change or otherwise, it is time for us to rething Columbus Day. Allowing this fraudulent despicable man to be honored yearly is a great injustice to the Native Americans whose ancestors were victimized by his vile acts of brutality.

The idea that learning institutions still honor this holiday and by extension this man, is an insult to academic process – by allowing made-for-second-grade textbook propaganda to suppress historical accuracy.

Columbus belongs in our history books; the myth of Columbus does not. That our country still perpetuates this enormous lie is no reason to celebrate.

Latin America, the United States and Democracy

Eva Gollinger has an interesting essay at Venezuela Analysis regarding the role of the US in trying to fund anti-Chavez forces in Venezuela. While the US likes to speak the sweet narrative of democracy, they simply find the way it has panned out in Venezuela to be unacceptable to US interests--and so they go to extreme lengths to work on ousting Chavez and to thwart the democratic will of the people.

Of course they went as far as to actually back a 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez, though the democratically elected leader was back in charge less than 2 days after he was kidnapped and jailed by opposition forces. But despite the failed coup, Gollinger notes, the National Endowment for Democracy are still quite busy undermining the will of the people in the Venezuela.

The US Congress has already approved $3.6 million for this office in Venezuela for the year 2007-8, which indicated that this subversion will continue increasing and threatening the Bolivarian revolution.

Historically, It has long been the policy of the United States to support coup attempts toward government's in Latin America that are not willing to play by Washington's rules. This is easily found in the public record. In 1965, a now-declassified memo (available in the Foreign Affairs Series) was written by then Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, to George McBundy, who was special assistant to President Johnson, clearly illustrates that the policy of the US is if the US military to work to overthrow governments that they felt were not interested in"the welfare of the nation" -- which amounts to the welfare of US economic interests.

The first such example, which preceded the McNamara-McBundy memo, was the the 1954 US backed coup in Guatemala that overthrew the democratically elected administration of Jacob Arbenz, which was justified as a means to counter Soviet expansionism.

Ever since the US has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into these types of operations. The overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government in Chile in the early 7o's is well documented since Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon are on tape speaking about the effort. In Robert Dallek's latest book, Nixon and Kissinger we see the contents of a Kissinger memo which read " 'Allende's election was a challenge to our national interest .... [Chile] would soon be inciting anti-American policies attacking hemisphere solidarity, making common cause with Cuba, and sooner or later establishing close relations with the Soviet Union.'" And so, the message was clear, despite the fact that Allende was elected fairly and freely even in the face of US efforts to defeat him, an "Allende government was unacceptable to the United States" and CIA Director Richard Helms instructed his agency to "prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him." Nixon, obsessed with this policy, sent Helms a memo that said " $10,000,000 available, more if necessary .... make the economy scream." Eventually the covert activities helped to take Allende down, on Sept. 11, 1973.

There are of course many other examples that are worth looking into.William Blum's Killing Hope, for an entire history of US military and CIA interventions since 1945, is an excellent place to start.

But the major lesson to take from these policies is clear: the United States and the NED are not interesting in promoting democracy, and in fact, are eager to undermine it if they do not like the way people voted. This is seen in Palestine, where now the people of Gaza are being collectively punished, living without electricity, and with little food, because the US did not like the way they voted in a an election that has been deemed free and fair by international bodies. The United States will support democracy only when it suits their geopolitical interest; they will oppose it at every turn when it does not.

William Kristol's History Lesson

This man is growing increasingly delusional by the day.

And all honor to George W. Bush for following in Reagan's footsteps, grasping the nettle, and confronting the real lessons and consequences of Vietnam. The liberal media and the PC academics are horrified. All the better.

Sweet Victory: War Made Easy

This week's Sweet Victory is up. It is about the new documentary film based on Norman Solomon's book War Made Easy. The film is being screened by progressive organizations across the country, in an effort to bring activists together to help end this war. If you are interested in attending or hosting a screening, click here.

Roll the Tapes

There are few things in this world that get me more excited than the release of more Nixon tapes.

How to end the War

Nicholas Von Hoffman writes an essay in defense of the "fringe candidates" regarding the presidential debates and in doing so rightly pokes a big hole in the Democrats excuses of giving Bush $100 billion for the war.

The mainstreamers were rattling on to the effect that, of course, they are against the war; they just do not have enough votes to pass a law ending it.Then Kucinich was given the microphone for a moment and said that Congress can stop the war whenever it wants, not by passing a law the President will veto but by not passing any war appropriations bill at all. Just do nothing and Mr. Bush will have no money for the war and the troops come home.

This may sound obvious, but the major candidates and most of the media, almost always let the Democrats "we-don't-have-the-votes" excuse go unchallenged.

There is historical precedent for this type of media charade. By in large, the media has a done better job of distorting the truth during and leading up to war, than telling it. Media critic Norman Solomon's book chronicling such behavior, War Made Easy, has recently been adapted into a film, and is worth checking out. He makes the point that by the time the bulk of the media does turn on a war it is almost always years after the public does,--and even when they do, they still perpetuate the empty platitudes and deceitful logic that keeps us in combat.

The War Prayer

Mark Twain's short story, "The War Prayer" , is arguably the greatest anti-war short story in the history of American literature. The story was written after the Spanish-American War (and the Phillipine-American War)--a time when massive overseas expansionism was becoming more and more common. However, it was not published until after World War II, well after Twain's death in 1910.

While the story has no real plot, I always reckoned it could make a good film.


Someone has finally tried.

Book Review: War Made Easy

This was originally published at Spare Change News. (No link is available at the SCN site right now)

Book Review: War Made Easy by Norman Solomon

It is often said that the left does not have enough voices in today’s political climate. While this may be true of the Democratic Party, in truth, the progressive community does indeed have an impressive list of intelligent writers in their midst, available to those who know where to find them.

One of these voices is Norman Solomon. While he may lack the bombastic demeanor of Michael Moore, or the iconic stature of Howard Zinn, his twice-weekly syndicated columns which run in many alternative publications and Web sites, offer refreshingly independent, rational critiques of today’s press. As a result, he is becoming one of the most trustworthy media critics of our time.

In War Made Easy, Solomon exposes the manner in which leaders manage—largely through a compliant media—to sell war through the same, fallacious arguments; the results are frightening, often deadly.

The books structure is its greatest asset. Each chapter is titled with a classic justification or myth about war such as: “This guy is a modern-day Hitler,” or “Withdrawal Would Cripple U.S. Credibility”

Each chapter details how presidents and pundits use these rhetorical techniques to validate and continue war efforts. Focusing largely on Vietnam, Gulf War I and Iraq, Solomon chronicles how similar patterns emerged in each conflict, from the buildup, to the conclusion. No matter the decade, no matter the enemy, he argues, our leaders tell the American people the same things: that this war is a last resort, that it is in the interest of human rights, or that America is fighting for freedom abroad, not natural resources.

The fact that these justifications are used systematically, like clockwork, for seemingly every war, is quite damning to their legitimacy. Furthermore, as Solomon points out, the talking points often drastically conflict with reality.

To progressives and scholars, the thesis of War Made Easy is not new. What this book provides to those are already on board with Solomon, is a sharp, thoroughly researched academic tool that should benefit students and teachers who study propaganda and the relationship between US foreign policy and the media.

Where the book may prove to be most valuable, however, is with those—and there are many—who do not already have a healthy skepticism of how and why the US wages war. Many Americans, to give one example from the book, would be shocked to find out that in the three weeks leading up to the Iraq war in 2003, only 3 percent of American television sources opposed the invasion. For, if statistics like these became common knowledge, the next war may not be so easy to make.